Annotated Bibliography:
In this article, “ Ladies in White: The Peaceful March Against Repression in Cuba and Online” written by Alissa Del Riego and Adrianna C. Rodriguez is about the Women in White. These women are also known as Las Damas de Blanco, are a group of women who protest the unjust incarceration during Fidel and Carlos Castro’s regime. Every Sunday these women wear white to church and have peaceful protest marches. In more than one occasion these women were detained with violence for protesting peacefully. There are several cases of these women being violently removed from the streets by the Cuban government officials. These viscous beatings of Las Damas de Blanco were committed by the government officials, which are often for misogynist reasons. According to the authors La Damas de Blanco had a break through with the videos and pictures of the violence towards these women escaped Cuba and made it on national news, YouTube, news on the internet, etc. The fight for the liberation of their sons, husbands, fathers, etc is the ultimate goal for these women,
Las Damas de Blanco was formed because of incarceration of the several people in the spring of 2003. These people were detained for being independent journalists or just for being suspicions to the government. These prisoners have been given long sentences and are treated in inhuman way. The authors take in consideration statements of human violations of the affected for example the conditions of the incarcerated for example the Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died in the hands of the government because they could not take care of him in his state. Also, they have people tell them of the bad things that happen during the detainment like their houses were searched for over eight hours or having many officers come to their house armed. According to these authors these action made women become activist because before these incidents most were not involved with politics. Las Damas de Blanco are attacked by the people whom agree with Fidel and the government and are ambushed by both essentially their own people turn their backs on them. This makes the people of Cuba polarized within the communities.
The authors concentrate a lot on the aspect of the Catholic Church and the people on church polarizing with them or against them. Some people do not like the idea of the church helping these women. The Catholic Church has impacted the lives of these women through out empowerment and motivation to protest peacefully. Freedom of expression in Cuba is different than most place sense it is very censored.
According to the authors the internet was helpful to Las Damas de Blanco because their peaceful movement and the violent actions towards them were introduced to the world. The internet which is very restricted of what can be shared leaked. The authors recognized that this technology allowed for the movement to grow around the world and for it to be recognized. Rights of expression and inhuman treatment of incarcerated and the protestors were brought to the internet and shared everywhere. According to the others the internet was great factor that pushed Cuba into releasing the incarcerated. The peaceful protesting continues for advocacy of incidents like this from occurring again, which authors believe could happen again.
Picture Credit: http://www.damasdeblanco.org/index.php/noticias/1890-decenas-de-damas-de-blanco-detenidas-en-varias-provincias-de-cuba I chose this picture because it shows what the Las Damas de Blanco do and that is protesting peacefully. In this picture we see women wearing white attire marching down the street caring flowers. On some of the shirts these women are wearing what it seems to be a face of a person that is incarnated or dead.
-Steph Aparicio
Human Rights in Latin America 
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